A wire-map tester consists of a remote unit that you attach to the far end of a connection and the battery-operated, handheld main unit that displays the results.
Typically, the tester displays various codes o describe the type of faults it finds, so you know which part of the cable you messed up on or what else may be wrong with it. Tone Generators Tone generators are the simplest type of copper cable tester. A tone generator is made up of two parts, a tone generator and a probe. These are sometimes referred to as a fox and hound wire tracer. With a standard jack, you connect to the cable the unit that transmits a signal, or, with an alligator clip, you connect the unit to an individual wire.
The other unit is an inductive amplifier, which is a en like probe that emits an audible tone when touched to the other end of the conductor. Tone generators are most often used to locate a specific connection in a punch-down block. Using a tone generator is extremely time-consuming and it is nearly as prone to errors as the cable installation. Time-Domain Reflector’s A TAR is the primary tool used to determine the length of a copper cable and to locate the impedance variations that are caused by opens, shorts, damaged cables, and interference with other systems.
There are two basic types of Tars available: those that display their results as a waveform on an LCD screen and those that use a numeric readout to indicate the distance to source of impedance. You can use a T DIR to test any kind of cable the uses metallic conductors. A high quality TAR can detect a large variety of cable faults, including open conductors, shorted conductors, loose connections, sheath faults, water damage, crimped, cut, or smashed cables. In addition, a T DIR can measure the length of the cable and the distance to any of these faults.
If I were to choose to eave any of these testers within ever cable installation kit I would have to go with a wire-map tester and a TAR. I would have the wire-map tester simply because it would be simple to just plug in a cable and make sure it is working correctly if I am forced to create a wire on the fly during an installation. I would include the TAR because it allows for you to easily find any problems within the wiring if the installation is not done correctly or there are wire there from a previous installation.
